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Drawing on what are the simplest examples should facilitate an overview of the various links that obtain between action and speech. I will exemplify "action" by means of everyday activities such as running, handing things over, hammering or sawing; and "speech" by speech acts such as orders, avowals and statements. In both cases we can speak of "actions" in a broader sense. However, so as not to blur the differences — which at a later stage will be important for my argument — I shall choose from the outset two different models. Actions in the narrower sense, simple non-linguistic activities of the aforementioned sort, I shall describe as purposive action (Zwecktätigkeit), by means of which the actor intervenes in the world in order to achieve his goals by choosing and implementing appropriate means. I shall describe linguistic utterances as acts by means of which a speaker wishes to reach understanding with another speaker about something in the world. Such descriptions can be made from the perspective of the participant. They are to be distinguished from descriptions from the perspective of a third person who observes how by means of purposive activity an actor attains a goal or reaches understanding about something with another person via a speech act.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-4522-2_3

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